Roberto Angotti (Author and Director of "Italian American Baseball Family")
The story of the Italians in the US, and in particular the story of their contribution to the greatness of America, can be told by several different angles, as we know very well here at We the Italians. One of these points of view is sport: and when we talk about sport in the US, Baseball is probably the first choice. That is why we are very ple...
Paola Sartorio (Executive Director of the US - Italy Fulbright Commission)
The US - Italy Fulbright Commission is a bilateral organization, composed in equal measure by the Italian and American governments, which for decades has been linking Italy and the US, fostering cultural exchanges and helping Italians and Americans to get to know each other better, appreciating their skills and the possibility of join forces. Paola...
Marco LiMandri (Chief Executive Administrator of the Little Italy Association of San Diego)
There are still many Little Italys in the United States. Some of them are just a few blocks now, other are what's left of the urbanization that brought large roads in the middle of many American cities after the war, several times crashing an Italian community. Every one of them is a place where a big Italian heart has been, is and hopefully always...
Claudia Giudici (President of "Reggio Children")
When we think about the Italian superior quality in how to educate our children, a world well known excellence is the Reggio Emilia Approach. Launched after the war by Prof. Loris Malaguzzi, it has slowly but constantly carved out an ever-increasing and appreciated space, in a field as important and delicate as that of primary education. The US has...
Lawrence DiStasi (Author of "Branded: How Italian Immigrants Became 'Enemies' During WWII")
Imagine 600,000 Italians in America, good honest hardworking people. Imagine them all of a sudden branded as enemy aliens, discriminated, questioned, moved to internment camps. Imagine that they are prohibited to work, to live in their own homes, to travel more than 5 miles. Imagine them forced to prove their innocence, for a charge they don't even...
Bernardo Carducci (President of the Italian-American Association of Louisville, KY)
Italy in Kentucky has a smaller history than other American places. The Bluegrass State saw some Italians come in the period of the mass emigration from Italy, but not as much as other bigger States on the two coasts. Nonetheless, in Louisville there's a club that celebrates Italy in several different ways, led by a true Italian who is for sure the...
Lucia Mauro (Writer-director and author of "Frances Xavier Cabrini: The People’s Saint")
The most important Italian emigrant to the US, a marvelous person who spent her whole life helping their fellow Italians and not only them, and then acquired the American citizenship later becoming the first American saint ever: we're talking about Francesca Xavier Cabrini, the Patron Saint of Immigrants and Hospital Administrators. After being fun...
John Battersby Campitelli (President of Italiadoption)
At the end of World War II, Italy was a country in great difficulty. Relieved by leaving behind a terrible period, but with a difficult reconstruction in front of them, the Italians counted many situations of poverty and great discomfort. In this historical and cultural context, a forgotten page of Italian history reemerges, a page in which the Uni...
Anthony Ficarri (National Commander of the Italian American War Veterans)
On November 11 every year the United States observe Veterans Day, an official United States public holiday, that honors military veterans, those who served in the United States Armed Forces. Several Italian Americans were part of the US Forces through the decades. In particular, after Pearl Harbor many Italian citizens living in the United States w...
Vera Ferrara Girolami (OSIA), John Viola (NIAF) and Angelo Vivolo (Columbus Citizens Foundation)
The attacks against Christopher Columbus are almost every day in the local and national news. Cities that decide to celebrate Indigenous Day instead of Columbus Day, statues vandalized, articles describing Columbus as guilty of genocide, angry people everywhere. Angry are also the Italian Americans, or at least the majority of them. We the Italian...
Adriana Trigiani (Writer)
There are many talented Italian Americans among the most important American writers of this century and of the last one. Helen Barolini, Gay Talese, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Don DeLillo, Mario Puzo, John Fante are just a few names of great Italian writers we admire and love. Today we are very happy and proud to welcome on We the Italians one of the m...
Bill Connell and Stan Pugliese (Authors of "The Routledge History of Italian Americans")
There are several books that tell in many ways one or more aspects of the Italian American community; and there are some that have been entrusted with the mission of telling it in its entirety. Some of these works are excellent, but in these days a book is coming out that promises to give a never seen before picture of the Italian American experien...